Nicolas Kristof, the venerable New York Times columnist and champion of foreign policy liberalism, wrote a pretty middling article a couple of days ago, called “Is Israel its Own Worst Enemy?” Kristof has a sort of Groundhog Day dynamic with the Palestine-Israel conflict; every once in a while, he wakes up and rattles off an anguished column, mourning the radicals on both sides that make “pe Read more about Dire Consequences for Backing the US State Department's Consensus on the Two State Solution
Monadel Herzallah, Sara Kershnar, Max Ajl and Kristin Szremski23 May 2011
The roster of speakers at AIPAC’s annual policy conference — from Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu to Christian Right paragon Ralph Reed, President Barack Obama and several members of Congress — is clear evidence that the relationship between and interests shared by AIPAC, the religious right and the US government continue unabashed and unchallenged. Read more about Challenging AIPAC and confronting "US interests"
Eyes in Gaza is a detailed and harrowing account by the Norwegian doctors Mads Gilbert and Erik Fosse of their experiences in al-Shifa Hospital during Israel’s deadly assault on Gaza in December 2008-January 2009. Read more about Review: Norwegian doctors' "Eyes in Gaza"
WASHINGTON (IPS) - StandWithUs — an “organization that ensures that Israel’s side of the story is told” — has become increasingly aggressive in challenging the “pro-Israel” credentials of moderate Jewish-American groups, going so far as to suggest that receiving money from Arab donors and supporters of Human Rights Watch undermines a group’s commitment to Israel and peace. Read more about StandWithUs money trail reveals neocon funders
A February 2008 report by the pro-Israel media watchdog CAMERA claimed the existence of an overwhelming pro-Arab, anti-Israel agenda in The Washington Post, The New York Times, and The Los Angeles Times in “guest op-eds” over a 19-month period. The Electronic Intifada found CAMER ignored articles that undermined its claims. CAMERA responded with another report reaffirming most of its findings, but The Electronic Intifada finds that once again, CAMERA’s analysis fails to pass the credibility test. Read more about CAMERA's broken lens revisited
The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA) is a media monitoring organization with a large database of supporters known for its staunch support for Israeli policies and its ability to influence media coverage. While CAMERA claims to be objective and interested in holding the media accountable to its own “self-professed standards,” a study published by The Electronic Intifada demonstrates terminology and views of the organization are largely consistent with those of the Israeli government itself. Read more about EI study refutes CAMERA media bias accusation
A pro-Israel pressure group is orchestrating a secret, long-term campaign to infiltrate the popular online encyclopedia Wikipedia to rewrite Palestinian history, pass off crude propaganda as fact, and take over Wikipedia administrative structures to ensure these changes go either undetected or unchallenged. A series of emails by members and associates of the pro-Israel group CAMERA (Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America), provided to The Electronic Intifada (EI), indicate the group is engaged in what one activist termed a “war” on Wikipedia. Read more about EI exclusive: a pro-Israel group's plan to rewrite history on Wikipedia
One day in 1981, my late father, Maurice Hanna Bisharat, returned from a long day at his Sacramento, Calif., medical office with an extra bounce in his step, his eyes dancing with excitement. His friend, Michael Himovitz, the young owner of a local art gallery, had called, offering to hold a one-person show of my father’s paintings - mostly California landscapes. My father had taken up painting after immigrating to this country from Palestine in the late 1940s, and although an amateur, had won a national art award within two years. Read more about Pro-Israel Censorship Hurts Us All
On Dec. 7, 2006, CNN journalist Glenn Beck savaged President Jimmy Carter’s important new book, Palestine Peace Not Apartheid, despite clearly not having given it a close read. In the course of his diatribe he referred to President Carter as a “fathead.” Time was that an employee would be fired on the spot for such a transgression. Had my mother or father run CNN and been listening I am quite certain that Beck would have been pulled from the set and a sincere apology offered to viewers within minutes. Clearly, no real standards exist at CNN. Read more about Vile Jibes At President Carter Ignored By Media
I’m sure newspaper editors everywhere fantasize the day when they don’t receive a single letter charging their publication with “bias.” This notion of bias is quite vague — it can mean that a publication presents a story as too sympathetic with one side of an issue (be it abortion, affirmative action, or the Israeli-Palestinian conflict) or that a news source doesn’t present one side of the story at all. And because the word bias is thrown around so often, like the word “terrorism,” the meaning of the term has been pretty much diluted due to over/misuse. Peace, Propaganda, and the Promised Land, a new documentary from the Media Education Foundation, goes beyond charging the media with bias, and takes a close look at how news coverage is shaped. Read more about New documentary takes Israeli-Palestinian conflict coverage to task
